


start and stop and spin

by emkayss



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Fluff, M/M, TRK spoilers, also there is vague sex, post trk, very adam centric o boy, wee musings about LIFE and LOVE
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-12
Updated: 2016-05-12
Packaged: 2018-06-07 12:14:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6803719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emkayss/pseuds/emkayss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>Understanding love is easy when he’s doing it with someone who is falling faster than him. It’s easy when it’s made out of late nights and white duvets and heavy bass and thick dreams.</em>
</p><p> <em>Is loving the same as spinning? It must be.</em></p><p>Or: a series of questions Adam asks as his relationship with Ronan grows.</p>
            </blockquote>





	start and stop and spin

**Author's Note:**

> basically.... i have been listening to an obscene amount of troye sivan because i, like ronan, am a Gay Emo 18 Year Old. also, i just wanted to write something with more commas than the other stuff i've written.

_"It is late now, I am a bit tired; the sky is irritated by stars. And I love you, I love you, I love you – and perhaps this is how the whole enormous world, shining all over, can be created – out of five vowels and three consonants."_ -Vladimir Nabokov

.

Gansey breathes again.

Blue survives her first kiss.

Ronan lives.

Adam’s hands are undone. They’re shaking, but they’re also his, and for now — that’s enough.

.

Over the course of a manner of days, Adam and Ronan have kissed twice, Gansey has died once, and Ronan has _almost_ died too many times.

Quiet, that’s what everyone needs. Space to process and reflect and tuck things away. Adam needs to go back to school. Ronan needs to go back to the Barns. They do; and when school is over Adam drives back and helps Ronan fix the hinge of a door, or stain the deck, and then Adam does his homework on the old, wood table in the kitchen while Opal and Ronan scrounge together something to eat and then Opal lays out placemats and cutlery and fills glasses with water and they all sit around the table and spoon something into their mouths. It’s scarily domestic, something Adam hasn't ever thought about having, and he's still not sure how the fuck Ronan’s going to take care of a _kid,_ but shit, if that thought’s not doing something to Adam’s insides, nothing will.

Is this how it works? Being with someone? Kissing them and waking up with them, even if it’s only every once in a while? Is it supposed to make you feel stupid? Adam’s never been drunk, never really wanted to be, but if he were to imagine it this might be what it would be like.

Or maybe it’s not like intoxication — even when it’s late at night or early in the morning and Adam can’t stop laughing or gasping or smiling — but rather like he’s able to see things, and understand things, that he wasn’t able to before.

Like, that there are stars, stars that start and stop and spin, dotting Ronan’s skin. Adam learns this one night, when the snow first fell at the Barns. Or do they suddenly show up underneath his fingers and beneath his tongue, like the fat bits of snow falling just outside the window?

Is this how it works? Kissing and being? Smiling and loving? It’s an odd feeling. Something that stirs something, however vague, however thick the fog is that lies over Adam’s thoughts and Adam’s feelings.

 _Does the midnight sky have a colour?_ Does it have a name? Constellations do. Planets do. Stars do, and suns, and galaxies. Adam knows this. He understands this. He was a man, or a boy, of logic first.

But what is the thing that holds the sky together, that is so frightfully present it’s ignored? Ronan says the sky doesn’t need a colour. _It’s the sky. You already know what colour it is._

.

Is this how it works? Is having someone’s hand in yours like finally being tethered to something? If Adam could figure out how to fly, he doesn’t know if he even _could_ , not when he’s tucked into the backseat of the BMW, or into a chair at Blue’s, or back at the Barns. Not when his hand is heavy with Ronan’s, his fingers tight between his because Adam knows Ronan might float off too.

And floating away is overrated, for what it’s worth. Being Adam Parrish is good, sometimes, but it’s better when being Adam Parrish means he’s a part of Adam Parrish and Ronan Lynch. It’s real, real enough that Adam can put a name to it, that he can reach out and touch Ronan, kiss him. _Real._ Smiling and laughing and having skin touch his skin in a way that feels more like home than anything has before it.

Is it supposed to feel like it only belongs to you? Like the world has finally given Adam something — some _one_ — that’s his, and his alone? Like everything he shares with Ronan — his hands, his thoughts, first kisses and first times — couldn't be shared with anyone else? It’s not as though they’re actively trying to keep it a _secret;_ Blue figures it out faster than Adam would like, smirking every time they touch longer than they would if they were still _just friends,_ every time they let their hands touch on the table at Nino's, every time Adam falls asleep with his head heavy on Ronan's shoulder.

Adam knows that Blue is the only person Ronan has ever talked to about about _this —_ about what he dreamt about, about how much he hated what he wanted, how he tried to run away at 90 miles an hour, drown whatever it was he felt in alcohol and hid it behind all-encompassing tattoos and worn leather and those ever-present sneers. Adam knows that while he was having his little gay panic out with Gansey, when the only thing he could think about was _kissing Ronan,_ Ronan was out in the kitchen trying to keep himself together, too.

By some kind of miracle, some kind of magic that is lying in bed with Ronan’s head tucked into Adam’s shoulder and their bodies sticky with sweat and something else, smiling like someone just told them the best news in the world — Ronan tells Adam what happened in his head. How it was like this: Adam sitting on the edge of the bed where Ronan dreamt for the first time, with that dream car in his hand. It was the light, that was just starting to disappear for the night, that cast Adam’s features in a soft glow and Ronan tells Adam it was like he didn’t have a choice — like he walked in, and he saw him there, and it was like someone had just _shot me in the fucking chest,_ like he was going to stop living, or stop _dreaming,_ if he didn’t kiss him.

Is this how it works? Adam’s heart feeling like it’s about to come up through his mouth, not just when Ronan tells him this particular detail, but whenever Ronan smiles at him like he’s his entire world? He remembers feeling adrenaline coursing through his body the first time he’d made Ronan smile like that. He thinks he might’ve been thinking of something else.

.

Is this how it works? Adam talks sense, and Ronan talks truth? Whispers answers Adam didn’t know he was looking for into the skin of his neck and between his parted lips? Love is odd, and Adam thinks he might understand it soon. Not yet — but he’s on his way. Understanding love is easy when he’s doing it with someone who is falling faster than him. It’s easy when it’s made out of late nights and white duvets and heavy bass and thick dreams. When loving is beginning to mean the same thing as _recovery,_ and _healing,_ and _growth,_ and all those things Adam's thought he'd never get too. 

Is loving the same as spinning? It must be.

Skies and stars mix until there’s one thing instead of many. One colour. White lines across Adam’s vision. His mouth open on a gasp, loud and sharp, and needy in a way he's never been before. 

Ronan’s there when he opens his eyes again, like he always is, his eyebrows drawn together in what someone else might identify as pain — Adam knows what it is, though, he always knows, so he reaches between their bodies, fingers trailing hot skin. He pulls himself out, organizes himself a bit so he’s on his stomach rather than his knees, and then he pushes his fingers in and he knows he’s found what he’s looking for when Ronan groans, low and hoarse. Adam thinks, _fuck,_ and uses his tongue and his lips to lick and suck until Ronan’s rocking his hips again and then there’s a warning in his voice, and a second where Adam’s mind his racing before Ronan’s coming in his mouth and on his face and Adam grins like he’s got the entire world in his hands.

.

The future is spread out before them like an empty map, willing them create something that’s entirely theirs — and theirs alone.

Adam knows how to make the most of things, knows exploring and stumbling through forests and having magic winding through his body. But _this_ — this is something he’d never thought he’d have. Not with Blue, not with faceless girls in empty stainless steel apartments.

This is something else: this is sleeping in on the weekends and dreaming about only happy things because there are only happy things to dream about. Is this how it works? Is drawing lines across the skin of Ronan’s back supposed to give Adam the same loopy thrill as the promise of Glendower, the promise of having acceptance letters pressed into his hands?

Ronan flips himself over, grabbing Adam’s fingers and holding them still. He looks up at him expectantly, like Adam’s some kind of prayer, some kind of dream. Adam feels like a dream, still, so he decides he needs to say something. “Hey.”

“Hey,” Ronan says back, shutting his eyes closed. The light catches his eyelashes, and draws soft shapes down the side of his face, like he’s some kind of _structure,_ some kind of  _statue,_ like he’s _not real._ None of this still feels _real._ “When do you have work?”

 _That’s_ real. “Too soon,” Adam says, and lets Ronan rub his palms up and down his arms.

“What do you want to do?” Ronan asks. Ronan’s always _asking,_ always making sure things are okay for Adam. He’s comfortable with what he’s built, but he’s still unsure—Adam doesn’t blame him. Being cautious is something both of them have always needed to be, and it would be too much to ask either of them to try and leave it behind.

“Can we stay in bed?”

Ronan smiles lazily. “You read my mind.”

“Mmm. That’s not so hard, considering I’ve actually been in your head.”

“And?”

“You’re pretty fucked up,” Adam says with a fond smile and mock seriousness. “You should talk to someone about that.”

“Thanks,” Ronan says, pulling Adam down by the back of his neck so he’s tucked under the covers again, “But no thanks.”

Is Ronan supposed to see how Adam’s grinning against the skin of his neck? Or can he hide it? He feels like he’s about to burst with something, like Adam’s grasping for some metaphor, or some emotion he doesn’t quite understand, or something else he just can’t reach, and —

“I love you.” There it is.

“Go to sleep, you idiot,” Ronan says, quieter, half because his face is pressed up against Adam’s hair and half because of what Adam just said. And then, a second later: “I love you, too.” 

Is this how it works? Lying together in a bed with glow in the dark stars stuck up in messy constellations on the ceiling as the world spins around them and leaves them to be by themselves, at ease, wrapped up in Ronan’s old white duvet and each other and everything that comes with it? Their skin pressed together and Ronan’s fingers in Adam’s hair like if he let go he’d disintegrate, or stop existing, or stop loving?

.

Gansey breathes again.

Blue survives her first kiss.

Ronan lives.

And Adam breathes again, too.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading!! come be emo about pynch with me on tumblr @emkayss and twit @mirakayss!!


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